Surface, Structure, Stitch at City Lit: Week 4

 Week  4  of Surface, Structure, Stitch   was on Kantha and Boro , definately  in my comfort zone !  And with a week away , I'd been making good progress reconnecting with my  #trainstitching  of #wrapmeintheshore   with  the addition of precious fragments  from the City Lit Textile  Studio scrap box 

The notes  that Louise  supplied    recommended reading  of books  by Ahmad, Gillow, Morrell  and Zaman  - I have  them all (!)  plus the catalogue from the Boro exhibition at Somerset house  which  she also showed.  Apart from an example of a kantha stitched sari silk scarf ( of which I too own several), her  own samples  showed how kantha could be used in  reversible 3d forms, either a  spiral stitched bowl or a strip that could be manipulated in different  ways. 

 I had a go first using  circles of felt and  linen furnishing fabrics  -  another time I wouldn't start right in the centre and would add a coin in the bottom between the layers to  produce a base.

The second one   was a small strip of layered creams and blues with crude running stitches, pulled up  into a shell shape. Lots of possibilities.  Louise  suggested I  make  a much larger piece  of layered fabrics and incorporate ' lumps'  of buttons between the layers  to add further distortions and texture 

 I finished the stitching on the way  home on the train  and  spend quite a while manipulating it into different shapes

 Then , deep breath,  I started pulling up some of the stitching, taking photos as I went along 

 I love the potential of inside and outside  being  equally important

  Finally for my' daily drawing' I did a small patched stitched sample  showing the effect of the rippling from pulling up the running stitch.